Losing the Light

by Andrea Dunlop

  When the dining table had been cleared, Henri appeared at my side.

  “Brooke, you must come see the front of the ship. It’s wonderful to look out and feel yourself moving along the water.”

  I nodded tentatively and followed him around the side of the boat. Alex and Véronique were cloistered together, laughing covertly about something, and Isabelle was talking to Grégoire with a look that said it was taking all of her energy not to yawn in his face. Sophie was by herself at the stern, staring fixedly into the wake from the boat. She seemed a little distant tonight, but I didn’t have the energy or inclination to find out why just now.

  Henri offered his arm to me in a gentlemanly fashion and I took it, glad to have something to steady myself on as we made our way down the narrow walkway. He asked me some more questions about Nantes, what my host family was like, what classes I was taking. His earnest sweetness made him seem almost childlike. Then he was quiet for a long time.

  “I have known Alex for many years,” he said, looking out into the dark water in front of us. “You should—”

  “Henri!”

  We both jumped at the sound of Alex’s voice.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked, smiling and coming to stand between the two of us, leaning against the ship’s railing.

  “I wanted to show Brooke the ship.”

  Alex laughed. “Ah, mais Brooke est très intelligente. That sort of thing won’t work on her, my friend.”

  Henri blushed and shrugged. For a moment my mind reeled, wondering what he’d been about to say, but once I was in proximity of Alex again, it barely mattered, and my mind was flooded with the memory of his hand between my legs. For the rest of our time on the water, Alex stayed close to my side. The latter half of Henri’s sentence added to the cache of mysteries that I would obsess over in the years to come.

  When we said our goodbyes to Henri and Isabelle at the docks, I again caught the melancholy look Henri was giving me. But maybe I was imagining it.

  Back at the house, Véronique and Grégoire quickly disappeared, and then it was the three of us once again. Alex went back inside to get another bottle of wine and left Sophie and me alone for a moment on the terrace. I asked her if anything was wrong, trying to keep my voice even, to not show any of the irritation that I guiltily realized I felt. I loved Sophie but I wanted tonight for myself.

  “I don’t know.” She stretched back on the chaise with her arms crossed above her head. “I wish it was still just the three of us. These other people being here, it’s bursting my bubble.”

  I laughed. “Why is that?”

  “I can tell they think we’re silly, that they think they’re his real friends. But if they’d known all the time we spent with him, with his grandmother . . .”

  “Why does it even matter, Soph?” I asked gently.

  She shrugged and turned to look up at the stars, her features etched sharply in profile in the moonlight.

  Alex came back out and handed each of us a glass.

  “Ah, bon,” he said, “the three amigos alone at last.”

  For a moment we sat there silently while Alex poured our wine. As he filled my glass, I looked up at him, and for a blistering, electric moment we stared right at each other. He smiled and I felt it in my whole body.

  “So quiet tonight, Ms. Sophie,” Alex said at last, sitting down on the edge of my chaise. I let my shins relax against his back and looked out to where the calm ocean stirred, just beyond the treetops lit up by moonlight.

  “Too much sun,” she said dreamily. When she looked over at us, I thought I caught something pained in her eyes. Was this the real reason? Was she upset that I might be with Alex tonight? But she couldn’t be, I thought defensively, I told her.

  “In fact”—she pulled herself upright—“I think I may head up to bed. I’m exhausted.” She leaned over to kiss Alex’s cheeks.

  “Ah, non, it’s so early,” he said, cupping his hand to her cheek. I wished that he wouldn’t try to dissuade her from leaving; it stung a little.

  “Yes, yes,” she insisted, coming over to kiss me lightly on the lips.

  “Are you sure?” I said, in my quiet way of asking for her blessing. She smiled and nodded, but there was something beneath it.

  She disappeared into the house. I leaned forward and took a nervous sip of my wine, feeling the weight of Alex’s body against my legs, the weight of being alone with him.

  Alex leaned over his knees and stared thoughtfully into his glass of wine. The moment in the car seemed like long ago, and I wondered if that had indeed been meant as a promise, a preview of what was to come, or if it had been a complete whim, forgotten as quickly as it had happened. He put his glass down and turned around so that he was sitting cross-legged on the edge of the chaise facing me.

  “Et toi, chérie?” he said, smiling, “you’re not too exhausted, I hope?”

  I shook my head.

  He reached out for me and pulled me closer to him. “Vas-y.”

  He put his lips to mine and pulled me up by my legs so that I was straddling him. Drawing me close to him with one hand around my back and the other in my hair, he took his lips away from mine, pulled my head to the side, and kissed my neck.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” I said, my voice slow and muddled as though I were underwater.

  “Something I have noticed, a beautiful little coincidence of a woman’s body,” he whispered in my ear. “The underside of the lip here”—he bit my bottom lip softly—“is precisely the same color as the mamelon.”

  He pulled away from me and smiled. I blushed intensely.

  “May I have a look?” He was already pulling one strap of my dress to the side. “Yes,” he said, leaning down to my nipple as if to examine it, “the same exactly.” He traced his tongue over my nipple and I gasped. I let my head fall back and felt as if all the breath escaped from my body in one sharp exhale. I was only vaguely aware that we were outside where we could be seen; it felt as if no one would have the audacity to intrude on this moment, that the universe wouldn’t allow it.

  “Ma belle Américaine.” He kissed me again. “Vas-y.”

  He got up and offered me his hand. I returned the strap of my dress to its place and stumbled woozily to my feet, knocking over one of the glasses.

  “Oh, no”—I looked down to where the wine was running out of the overturned and now-cracked wineglass—“I’m sorry.”

  Alex laughed and tugged on my hand. “Leave it.”

  I laughed too without knowing why and followed him into the house.

  “Shhhhhhhhhh,” he said as I followed him to the top of the landing, hesitating for a moment to glance briefly at the door to Sophie’s and my room. It was closed, and for some reason I felt this as a reproach, though it couldn’t be, could it?

  In his room, Alex kissed me again and turned the lights down. He pulled my dress over my head, then laid me back on the bed. He hooked a finger around my underwear and tugged it gently down my legs. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see every detail of the room and of him, so brilliant was the moonlight that shone in the window. He was still mostly dressed with the exception of his bare, brown chest, and it made me feel twice as naked to be beside him like this. I rolled onto my side to face him and covered myself with my forearms.

  “Non,” Alex said quietly, softly taking both my wrists in his hands and gently drawing my arms down by my sides. “S’il te plaît, chérie, I want to see you.”

  It occurred to me that I had never before been naked like this with someone. Regan had only ever seemed halfway present when we were together, as though his guilt wouldn’t let him fully absorb the situation. I had never been scrutinized like this; it was both terrifying and thrilling.

  Alex ran a finger across my lips, down the middle of my torso, out onto the side of my hip.

  “C’est parfait. All of it. Your body is so beautiful, mon amour.”

  He lifted himself up
over me and I closed my eyes for a moment, almost overwhelmed by his closeness.

  “Open your eyes,” Alex said quietly. “I want you to watch me.”

  I complied, and soon enough I was transfixed by him, forgetting to be nervous about my nakedness.

  “People don’t appreciate the body the way they should.” He removed his pants and positioned himself between my legs. “Especially American men—with them it’s all tits and ass. There are these little curves and swells, like your thighs here.” He traced the insides of them. “When I felt that in the car, I knew how much I needed to see them, to get between them. I have been able to think of nothing else all night.”

  He maintained eye contact as he went down between my legs. I stifled a moan, burying my face in a nearby pillow.

  When he came back up, I was nearly delirious.

  “You taste sweet,” he said, his lips close to my ear now, “like a good girl.”

  “Alex.” My voice sounded weak and faraway. What did I want to say? I wanted confirmation that what we were about to do would change things between us for the better and not in some other, painful way. Should I tell him I loved him? Ask him if he loved me? I couldn’t. What if he lied or realized I was in over my head and stopped? Which of these things would be worse? I didn’t know.

  “Yes, my darling?”

  “Nothing. I’m just . . . very happy right now,” I said awkwardly.

  He laughed softly. “Good.” He turned me on my side and pulled himself up behind me. “It’s all I want. To make you happy.” His fingers parted me and then I felt him inside me, deep on the first stroke. He grasped my hips from behind and bit the skin on the back of my neck lightly.

  When it was over, he stayed inside me, his arms wrapped around me, until I fell asleep.

  THE SUN beamed through the uncovered window in the morning. I stirred and turned over. It took me a moment to remember where I was, and with whom. When my brain emerged from its half-asleep fog and I looked at Alex lying beside me, I felt a wave of bliss run through me, an almost nauseating thrill. I pulled myself close to his sleeping back. He didn’t stir. I was happy to have these few moments of being alone but with him at the same time—to process what had happened, to have it all to myself. I let the memories of the night before come flooding in, let them radiate in the places where I felt small and pleasant pains from having had him inside me, from the effort of trying to bring our bodies together as close as we could.

  I felt lighter than I had the day before, as though the effort of concealing my desire for Alex had been physically weighing me down and now I had been released from it. I felt cleansed, as if I’d been stripped of everything: defenses, armor, my souring memories of Regan. A new self had emerged in the night. Alex had broken down what was hard in me, my certainty that my inferior beginnings would forever separate me from the best of life, from people like him.

  As my mind eased in and out of sleep, I felt him turning over. I moved my arm out of the way and he drew me back in so that my head was on his chest. And with that I was no longer alone in my new reality. I giddily realized that I’d missed him while he slept.

  “Bonjour,” he said, his voice still raspy with sleep.

  I looked up at him and smiled. He was propped up on his elbow now, squinting in the dazzling sunlight.

  “Merde, that sun is so bright.” He pulled himself out from under me to get out of the bed and go to the window. Normally, something about the sight of a naked man performing a manual task was a bit grotesque. But as Alex reached for the window shade, bending as he dragged it down almost to the floor, he remained beautiful, perfect from where I was watching, with a stripe of brown across his lower back where the edge of his swim trunks hid him.

  “Much better,” he said, looking back over at me with a grin. I was sitting upright with the sheet pulled up over my bare chest. I nodded. He rubbed his eyes in an appealingly childlike way and gazed down at me as if we had a secret, something that didn’t need to be said aloud.

  “Comme j’ai faim! You must be as well, chérie. Shall we go downstairs for some breakfast?”

  I nodded again. What I wanted was for him to come back to bed. But his momentum told me that wasn’t where he was headed. He was hungry, I assured myself, and that was fine. There was no rush now, we’d already crossed over and there was no need to cling to him. We had other moments ahead of us, infinite moments.

  “Bon,” he said, and headed for the bathroom. He stopped as though he’d just remembered something and stooped down to kiss me, too briefly, on the lips. I smiled and let myself fall back onto the pillow that smelled of him, luxuriously breathing in his scent.

  It was later than I’d thought, and by the time Alex and I came down to the kitchen—me following closely and only a little sheepishly at his heels—Sophie and Véronique were moving busily around the kitchen. Grégoire was nowhere to be seen. There was tension in the air that I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

  “What have we here?” Alex asked.

  “Sophie is showing me how to make omelets!” Véronique said. Sophie smiled but didn’t look up from her frying pan. I wanted to pull her away so that I could tell her everything, so that I could relive the night once again by recounting the details to my best friend. I had been too unsure about the first kiss, too embarrassed by the night in Paris, but now I had to tell her.

  “Fais attention!” Alex came over and put his hands on Sophie’s shoulders. “My cousin is very dangerous in the kitchen.”

  “Stop, you!” Véronique whacked Alex with a dry spatula.

  I sat carefully on a stool, drinking coffee out of a wide-brimmed mug that Alex had poured for me. Véronique and Sophie conferred chummily over the frying pan; it was curious to catch the two of them like that. But the scene warmed my heart: Alex, my Alex, leaning against the counter sipping coffee and my dearest friends being friendly with each other at the stove, making breakfast for all of us as though we were a little family.

  Alex ground some more coffee beans. Despite my best attempts not to, I found myself following him with my eyes. He glanced over and flashed me a quick grin, which fired up the raw endings of my nerves and went straight to my heart.

  “Brooke,” Véronique said, “you will be our—comment dit-on?—guinea pig!”

  Sophie brought the herb omelet over to me and set it down. “Good morning,” she said quietly, smiling and looking me in the eye for the first time since we’d come down. I felt a little relieved.

  “This omelet is great!” I said after a first, enthusiastic bite. “I didn’t even know Sophie was such a good cook!”

  “I helped,” Véronique said, sticking out her bottom lip.

  “Of course, both of you are amazing cooks. Alex doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  Alex laughed and leaned over to kiss me on the forehead. I blushed and caught Véronique smiling at us.

  Once we’d finished our breakfast, Sophie, Véronique, and I took the rest of our coffee out onto the balcony. The soft breeze and the bright sun on the calm ocean seemed to slow time down nearly to a halt, but it was an illusion, as our departure time drew near.

  “It’s incredible,” I said.

  Sophie nodded but said nothing.

  “I’ll never forget this weekend,” Véronique said, “first of many, I hope.”

  Sophie and I waited until the last possible moment before going upstairs to pack our things. I felt a heaviness in my limbs as I rolled my clothes and put them in my bag, as though my entire body were resisting the idea of leaving.

  “I wish we didn’t have to go so soon,” I said to Sophie as I packed my bag sitting atop my conspicuously still-made bed.

  She shot me an enigmatic smile. She’d been quiet all morning, since last night. I had barely been aware of it earlier in my blissed-out state, but now that I was alone in the room with her, it was almost palpable.

  “But we’ll be back,” she said finally.

  I nodded, trying to believe it was true. “Right. Bu
t for now I will miss it.”

  She nodded.

  “Hey”—I stopped for a moment and stepped toward her—“is everything okay?”

  “Of course.” Her voice didn’t quite convince me. “Just sad to leave, like you said.”

  Sophie insisted I ride in the front with Alex on the way back into Nice. Grégoire was with us as well, having been sent off to town to meet up with a friend who lived in the area. I wondered if he’d done something to offend the volatile Véronique and if he even knew what he’d done to warrant dismissal.

  I tried not to stare at Alex as we drove, focusing instead on the scenery, which now felt familiar. He saw me looking over at him once and ever so briefly squeezed my knee.

  We dropped Grégoire off first, then headed for the station. Alex parked the car and walked with us to the platform. We all stood still for a moment, bags over our shoulders, people flowing around us. Many unsaid things hung in the air, but I tried to reassure myself that there would be space and time to say them all if I could only be patient.

  Alex spoke first. “Alors, thank you for coming along this weekend, les filles. It was marvelous.”

  He kissed Sophie first and then me. I waited for him to give me an extra acknowledgment, a quick kiss on the lips or even a meaningful look. But after a simple kiss on the cheek I was watching him walk away, bright and weightless in the early-afternoon sun.

  Sophie and I took seats by the window. We sat silently as they called the final all-aboard and the train lurched into motion. As we pulled away from the idyllic town, I thought I could feel the ocean getting farther away and with it Alex, the space between us expanding every second. Sophie gazed out the window, her eyes forlorn. I asked her again if anything was the matter.

  She shook her head. “People always think something’s wrong with me whenever I’m not talking nonstop. But sometimes I’m just thinking, you know?”

  “I know,” I said a little defensively. I didn’t like being grouped in with “people” as though I didn’t really know her. “It just seems like something’s on your mind, that’s all.”